Stephen Cope Changed My Life. He Might Change Yours, Too.

Need inspiration today? You got it.

Put away your yellow highlighter when you read a Stephen Cope book. You’ll find yourself marking almost every sentence.The whole book will be yellow.

Seven years ago I was happily retired, largely unacquainted with yoga, when I happened upon a book by Stephen Cope called Yoga and the Quest for the True Self. I knew right away that my life would never be the same.

The book instantly and utterly transformed me. The philosophy was that powerful and the writing that personal and engaging. I started reading every book on yoga philosophy I could get my hands on. I stepped up my meditation practice, as described in “Effortless Wellbeing”: Meditation as Everyday Life.

Stephen said he would have Random House send me an advance copy of the book when it was ready.

And then it happened again. This book has transformed my life just like Yoga and the Quest for the True Self did seven years ago.

I’ll leave the details of that story for another day, but for now let me just say that, if you have any interest in Yoga philosophy or the Bhagavad Gita…heck, even if you have absolutely no interest in either, but are just looking for some soaring inspiration for your daily life, you’re going to want read this book.

What makes Stephen’s books so very special is the way he mixes great spiritual truths, insights for everyday life and his own personal story—how this all affected his own life and that of his friends.

When you read Stephen Cope, you feel like you’ve spent all those hours hanging out with the author himself, rather than reading a book.

I had vivid conversations in my head with Stephen for seven years before I actually met him. When I finally sat with him in his office at Kripalu for a couple of hours, well, it was pretty much the same as it was in my head all those years. That’s how engaging, personal, and exquisitely crafted his writing is.

Walt Whitman is here, whose Song of Myself is often referred to as the “American Bhagavad Gita.”

So is Mohandas Ghandi, for whom the Gita was his motivational and practical bible.

And Henry David Thoreau, who famously chose the Bhagavad Gita as one of the five books he took with him to Walden Pond.

But Ludwig van Beethoven? Who knew that Beethoven had quotes from the ancient yoga texts for daily inspiration underneath the glass on his desk? Who knew that his struggle to endure and eventually triumph over the unbearable tragedies in his life, like being abused by his father, suicidal depression, and going deaf, exemplify the philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita?

Or Robert Frost? Or Susan B. Anthony? Or Camille Corot (the impressionist painter most admired by other impressionist painters)?

Or Harriet Tubman? Or John Keats? Or Marion Woodman? Or Jane Goodall?

When I talked to Stephen at Kripalu, where he is the director of the Kripalu Institute for Extraordinary Living (the largest yoga research institute in the Western world), he told me he had many more stories to tell like these. His research turned up many more people than these eleven who lives have either been heavily influenced by the Bhagavad Gita, or whose lives exemplify its principles. He said he actually had trouble choosing which ones to include.

Sounds like a sequel to me. What could be better for a Gita lover like myself, already gaga over Cope’s writing, and whose life has already been twice transformed by his books.

45 Comments

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I have revered Stephen's brilliant temporizing of classic yogic texts (Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, the Bhagavad Gita) as illustrated by contemporary and historical figures. Yet after attending Stephen's Kripalu seminar about the Gita and leading two book discussion groups at my UU church about his latest book, the question must be asked: how can contemporary householders (with spouses, kids and conventional jobs) relate to aspirational dharma histories about primarily single, childless historical figures who were free to devote their energies singlemindedly to artistic and political reform? Or as my wife said when she put down the book halfway through, "Do I have to quit my life to find my dharma?" Stephen would answer no, but the overemphasis on extraordinary figures renders his latest book intimidating to many ordinary people.

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